1

On a whim, James Ramón Blackhawk turned on his heels at Seventh Street, deciding to pay a brief visit to Hayden. Maybe he's not too far into today's bottle, he considered with thin hope. His long, thick, blue-black hair funneled in a ponytail through the plastic snap at the back of his faded Giants baseball cap. He pulled the hat low, bowing his head as he passed a group of teenagers near the steps to Hayden Kurtz’s lime green Victorian. He heard them whisper, "Hey, I think that guy was Raven."

Bounding up the paint-peeling wooden stairs, he pressed the black buzzer impatiently, not daring to look down at the adolescents, who were no doubt mustering the courage to ask for autographs.

"Hey, Mr. Rock Star," Hayden drawled amidst the reek of rotten laundry and mustard gas breath. James, more popularly known as Raven, had to make the choice between pathetic pubescent adulation or dipsomaniacal rantings. Thus he started back down the creaking steps. He didn't even want to look at Hayden.

"Where are ya goin’? C’mon in," he said in a phlegmed-up tone. Resting a sinewy brown hand on the banister, Raven hesitated; below, the youngsters were waiting in ambush. Before he knew it, the door had closed behind him and Hayden was asking if he wanted a cocktail, a vodka bottle dangling precariously in the writer’s paw. The April sun issued sharply through the diamond-shaped crystal window above the portal, and Raven finally got a good look at him. Several days’ beard growth around his unkempt goatee, cheeks and nose mapped in broken red vessels, heavily bagged eyes, and a soused sneer, full of jade.

"Looks like you’re on a rampage, man," Raven told him.

"I asked you if you wanted a cocktail," Hayden repeated irascibly.

It was early afternoon, but never too early. "Sure. You have Bloody Mary mix?"

"Come this way," he said, leading the rock ’n’ roller into the den. "Sit," he commanded, gesturing to the hard sofa set in front of an expansive, ultra-thin video monitor and tower-like entertainment system.

Raven did as he was instructed with more than a little trepidation. "When did you last get some shut-eye, Hayd?"

Ignoring him, the author spoke at the video unit, "Video on." The unit failed to recognize his drunken voice, unidentifiable to its voice recognition sensors. "Video on!" he blurted angrily. The screen remained blank. Sighing with defeat, Hayden did his best to articulate precisely, "Video on." The monitor came to life. "Fuckin’ piece of shit," he cursed, plucking the remote control from the squat round antique table near the entertainment monolith. He told Raven, "Watch this video while I get you your cocktail, Rock Star."

Alone in the study, Raven considered escape, hoping that Hayden might forget that Raven had even stopped by. The writer had shut out all contact in the last two weeks as he prepared to draft a new novel. Raven guessed he wasn’t having much progress. And he hated when Hayden labeled him pejoratively, Rock Star.

A bright green triangle with a brilliant blue eye set within its three sides appeared on the video screen. He recognized this symbol as that of a radical political party that had gained popularity recently: the California Depopulation Party, or CDP. Raven hadn't paid much attention to the Bay Weekly lately–hadn't gotten his weekly dose of liberalism. He just had the preconception that the movement was some fly-by-night lunatic fringe.

"São Paulo…," the resonant male voice-over began, presenting densely populated streets, empty-faced poverty, and disease-ridden, malnourished skeleton children. Soldiers stony faced and minacious. "Mexico City…," the voice continued, and the images rolled on, content unchanged. The presentation was horribly guilt-projecting. Raven suddenly felt criminally over-indulgent for consuming his morning bagel. "Manila…" More and more and more squalor and sorrow.

A chill swept Raven with gooseflesh. Hayden had totally lost it. A not-very-simple case of writer’s block had mutated into a morbid fascination with fanaticism.

The large room was decked generously with his friends’ statuary and paintings. Photos of the seven of them covered the east wall. Examining the desk between the recliner and the window, he spied an open notebook near the computer, page one invitingly blank, and an old-fashioned fountain pen abandoned in a jar of black ink. Where the hell is he with my drink?

On screen, a sandy-haired man, early or mid or late thirties, pointed to an easeled bar-graph with a laser pen. This was the slick, charismatic spokesman for the CDP. "At our present rate of growth, world population will increase by another billion people in less than ten years. This figure has accelerated at an alarming exponential rate, a Malthusian expansion, if you will." Torn between grotesque fascination and what was now a very real need for booze, Raven glanced back and forth between the TV and doorway. "…supports strict birth rate control and legal euthanasia…" Beaded saline trickled down his neck behind his ponytail. His Native American features, offset by both black and white ethnic traces, furrowed and contorted with growing anxiety. "…extermination of a randomly chosen percentage of volunteers…" Time to escape. Standing up and turning around, he almost knocked the Bloody Mary out of Hayden's sweaty white grip.

Handing the beverage to him, Hayden burned his gaze into Raven's forehead, asking, "Like the video?" in a breath rancid with fermented contempt.

Raven sipped from the concoction, grimacing at the vodka-saturated tomato juice. "Not really, man. It's sorta like watchin’ Nazi propaganda or somethin’."

Hayden's inebriated half-smile disappeared as his lips pursed in a violent scowl. He bobbed his head in disgusted affirmation. Just what he thought; Raven was just like all the rest. A non-believer. A heretic.

"But it’s sorta interestin’. Kinda," he attempted to assuage his spiteful host. Hayden swung the Smirnoff's up, guzzling three greedy mouthfuls.

"‘Kinda, sorta interestin’,’" Hayden mocked, staggering toward the video screen. He whipped around and spat, "Do you have any fucking idea what this world is coming to, Rock Star?"

"Well–"

"Twelve billion fucking people on this fucking shit-hole planet by next decade. Just like God Malthus predicted!" His face grew scarlet and veined with rancor. His unbuttoned flannel shirt revealed a hairy pot belly and a ragged appendicitis scar. "You think there'll be food left for us? Out-fuckin’-stripped, man. Hope you had breakfast. Did you eat this morning, Mr. Raven?"

"Yes–"

"Shut up. Just play your music, head in the clouds, no problem." He was wielding the near-empty booze bottle like a billy club. "It’s already reached our hemisphere, our inner-cities. You won't be able to ignore it much longer. And in direct proportion to the growing mass of screaming malcontented paupers, pollution, strife, global warming–everything–will grow until we’re all swimming in a cesspool and gasping our last dying breaths!" Spittle trickled down his brown goatee, sweat soaked his pits through his heavy shirt. "You drive through the Mission District lately, Mr. Rock Star? Huh? Been through the Western Addition? Riot police and food lines. Judgment day is already fucking here!"

Raven gulped all of his drink and set the empty glass on the desk. "Dude, you’re fucked up. Get some rest." He made for the front door in a nervous sidestep. "Better yet–write it down! Turn this into a constructive thing. Get rid of that nasty writer’s block. Yeah. I’ll be seeing ya." As he passed over the threshold, Hayden was at his back.

"Run away, Rock Star! It’ll catch up to you!" he cackled crazily. "It’ll catch up to all of us. You’ll see! Depopulation is the only answer! Mark my words!"

Raven was at the base of the stairs when he heard the door slam behind him, Hayden screaming within. Jesus! Maybe I should contact Max and get him to sober Hayden up or smack some sense into him or something. His watch read two-oh-five; he was five minutes late. Pulling the visor of his cap down and biting his thick lower lip, he scanned the area for any fans that might waylay him. He trudged back up Seventh toward his destination.

A while later, sitting down at the desk, Hayden got up the nerve to try once more.

His hand shook, leaving a trail of black ink on the notebook page. He put down the fountain pen and reached for the last of the Smirnoff’s. As he tilted the vodka down his throat, he heard his neighbor put on Verdi’s Aída at full volume. Ever since Raven left, he had been quietly weeping into his notebook. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t write another goddamn word, couldn’t face the fact that he had no more words. He belched, the odor mixing with several days worth of alcohol, pipe tobacco, sweat and sleeplessness.

The window, next to which his faded old recliner sat, looked down upon Seventh Street and a long line of homeless waiting for their daily bread at the nearby mission. The opera provided an ironic soundtrack for these refugees and this made Hayden sob deeper. He’d been formulating a plan for many days; there was a way to make an honorable exit.

It was time–time to change clothes and get out his video camera.

Katja Chomski’s acting career was like San Francisco streets–up, down, and poorly planned. The present moment, trapped in the gallery, was akin to one of her early B-movie low-points. But instead of a well-hung, triple-X vampire at her heels, she fled journalists, muck-raking and hungry. Mostly, they wanted to know why she had been conspicuously absent from the screen and stage for over a year. Mostly, she wanted to hide.

Her friends, the rest of the SoMa Seven, stirred restlessly near the podium at the rear of the gallery, waiting for the "show" to start. Their presence momentarily drew the journalists’ attention. Katja, tall, Slavic, and anything but demure, hid behind a cement pillar in the over-growth of performance artist Sherman Sheridan’s forest of bizarre art works.

When she was young, amidst an overprotective Manhattan childhood, she would ditch investor father and socialite mother at museums, parks, and the odd lawn party, in search of seclusion smack-dab in public view: under a table, up in a leafless tree.

She poked her white face around the pillar and spied Sherman coldly giving orders to eager underlings. It may have been Hayden Kurtz’s death, but it was Sherman’s show. It made her sick. Sherman swaggering around his trussed-up gallery wearing an expression both sad and proud, aloof yet calculated. Who was the actor here anyway? Pompous little prick might as well call it one more opening. She watched Sherman from one end of the gallery; he moved like a giraffe, his frame bony, gawky, and rife with sinew. He stopped momentarily to give instructions to an assistant, his face unreadable and pallid.

Katja’s critical judgments were mainly a by-product of her pissy mood–after all, death can set one in a severe frame of mind. Taking a short step toward Sherman’s "Wall of Blood" piece, she stole around its tall edge, making sure she wasn’t seen. The insipid paparazzi would cut each other’s throats to get a picture of Katja Chomski, Queen of the Underground, weeping over Hayden Kurtz’s death. Safe behind the artwork, she relaxed. Isolation in a room crowded with an insensitive horde seemed like true evasion. Was it a wonder she had sublimated this urge into acting, the ultimate form of public concealment? Acting, however, at least in this morbid situation, would do no good and thankfully there wasn’t a parent in sight to ruin her game of hide ’n’ seek. Seated on the ground twixt the wall and the backside of the strange plaster, brick, wood, and fiberglass construction, she sighed, letting her long chestnut hair cushion her head as she leaned back. Time for a good cry. It was difficult to light the Virginia Slims with stinging purple-black mascara tears distorting her vision.

Wiping away the murkiness from the hazel-brown eyes with the back of her hand, she detected the voices of two people on the other side of the "Wall of Blood." Katja froze there, biting into the thick crimson lipstick that coated her lower lip.

A shrill female voice said, "Oh, this is the one with his blood on it." Katja could just barely discern her words through the five-inch barrier.

"Back when he was still good," replied a man’s pretentious Ivy League drawl. That jack-ass, Clive Tilley, Katja presumed. Only good blue-blood was a disemboweled blue-blood. Clive added, "I believe several bikers from San Bernadino assisted him with this piece. Beat him and rubbed the psychotic twerp all over it."

"S’posed to be…what? The Great Wall of China?" the woman asked stupidly. Who is that? Starlett Phipps? Wendy O’Neil?

"I suppose."

"I like it," she announced. "At least he’s still working."

"Unlike most of the others." Bastard!!

"That’s right. What’ll we call them now–the SoMa Six?" Bitch!!

The couple tittered self-consciously. The Queen of the Not-So-Underground wanted to slit both their throats with a rusty blade. Lousy media fucks! Snuffing out her half-smoked cigarette on the bare cement floor, Katja quickly lit another, her fingers trembling.

But the woman’s tone became almost warm when she admitted, "But I do kinda feel sad about Hayden–he wasn’t so bad."

"Well, I suppose not," Clive reluctantly agreed.

"Lighten up, Clive. I heard he did it because he joined that ridiculous Depop Party."

"Maybe, Wendy…maybe all his philosophic rubbish finally drove him stark-raving mad." They laughed.

So it is Wendy O’Neil! Eerrgh!! That fat, black fingernail polish-wearing, sallow-skinned vampire, media bitch poseur!! Torrents of helpless anger washed through Katja because they were both exactly right–Hayden had gone nuts. These two must both experience the most painful of deaths. Why’d you fucking do it, Hayden? Katja lamented. Pushing aside her pity, she yawned and stood up, straightening the little red and gray tuxedo jacket she wore, smoothing the tails with her mascara-stained hand. She puffed viciously on the cigarette and pulled dark Spanish wrap-around sunglasses from the silky inner pocket of the coat, placing them on her face. Her tacky candy-apple heels clicked loudly as she stepped around the edge of the "Wall of Blood."

"I can just see the next SoMa whimsy now–" Wendy started to say when Katja made her abrupt and surprising intrusion.

Ms. Chomski’s gaze was stony cold, shooting death rays. Wendy and Clive writhed speechlessly in surprised torment.

"…errr…umm…"

"…aahh…K-Katja…"

Turning as though on a pivot and giving an arrogant, pig-like snort of hatred, the actress walked away toward the crowded lounge at the rear of the cavernous gallery.

"Bitch," Clive said, gulping down the rest of his champagne.

She took the sixth seat, right next to Max, who stared unflinchingly at the grumbling crowd of media fucks and wannabe hipsters. They jabbered mechanically with self-importance and glee. They were the chosen witnesses, the honorable select.

Max, dressed reverently in black wool slacks and black T-shirt, leaned over and whispered, "Quick–let’s make a break for it." He actually started to get up, but Katja pressed him back into his seat.

"I’m not seeing this alone," she mumbled, adjusting her black sunglasses.

"Alone?" Max chuckled, gazing at the vapid audience.

A waitress, barely out of high school, appeared in front of them with a tray of champagne. She rid herself of the glasses one at a time, working her way down the row of artists. The last was Sherman and he emptied the glass and returned it to the tray before the waitress could walk away. Moving past her, he stepped to the strange sheet-metal podium, his stiff, commanding presence drawing the crowd’s attention.

"Hey!" he shouted into the microphone.

The group, maybe thirty people, was silenced instantly by the performance artist’s cutting tone. Slight feedback whined in the speakers.

"Hayden Kurtz put into words that which the rest of us," Sherman began, sweeping his bony hand toward his five compatriots, "expressed in our respective means, often clarifying with words that for which we had searched." Suddenly, as though some hidden stage hand had thrown a switch, Sherman’s face lit with a serious, angry glow. "You–leave!" he commanded sternly, pointing a long finger at a grinning young photographer in the front row. The confused and embarrassed fellow, who had been whispering from the side of his mouth to a companion, went ashen as all eyes turned expectantly on him, all hating him. Sheepishly he smiled and, getting to his feet, skulked toward the exit through the forest of bizarre art pieces.

Crossing the moody chasm whence he came, Sherman continued his speech. "He clarified with words all of that for which the SoMa Seven searched. Not anymore. He left us something, however. His instructions were to share it with you." Gesturing to an assistant, a black curtain parted in the corner of the room, behind which was a stack of video monitors. Six screens by six screens fuzzed bright and snowy at expectant faces. The lights dimmed and, as Sherman stepped away from the microphone, he intimated "No soul has witnessed what we are about to see."

In unison the wall of thirty-six monitors flickered and rolled, giving the illusion of one giant screen, high resolution pixels full and clear. Hayden Kurtz shown in vivid Japanese color, his image broken yet complete, like the reflection in the eye of a fly. He was dressed as he always fancied–a white button-down and a black southern gentleman’s string tie. The outfit did little to hide his deteriorated health, exhausted eyes, and paunchy gut. Smiling knowingly, he reclined in his favorite chair–an old, beige, tweed Lazyboy recliner–smoking his pipe and staring into the camera. He had set his video camera up at a slight angle, and the viewer beheld him eye to eye, his eyes a little above theirs, looking down consolingly.

"If you are seeing this, the most wonderful thing has happened–I showed a little bit of courage," he began in his smooth and flawless lecturer’s voice. The polished ebony pipe smoldered in his hand, and he blew a gray ring of smoke. "I have something to say. I’ve been silent far too long–at least to the media. For years I’ve remained tolerant as amateur philosophers and professional critics defined, delineated, and interpreted my work–a mere five novels, four screenplays and two stage plays. Not much for a life…" He paused, absently rubbing his brown goatee.

Katja was white-knuckled to her seat. She looked down the row at the rest of them, their faces cast in white-blue light from the mountain of monitors. It was overwhelming to see him again, talking, addressing them all. She was afraid she would scream, would wail pathetically, letting slip her frustrated love for the dead man.

"Some of you were right. I think it was Sal Monelli from the Weekly who coined the notorious term, post-existentialism. Fitting, I suppose. My generation, the 13th Generation of this country, was the first to have Nothing. No definitive culture, no God, no religion, no heroes, no harmony, no nature, no history–did I leave anything out? There was nothing to shed; gone was even the realization, the epiphany of discovering reality–the existential reality. We are grounded in the void…drowning. A priori nihilism–inherent meaninglessness." Stopping to refill his pipe, he stared out the window next to him. He moved within the still frame of the video, the camera frozen on its tripod. The voiceless seconds stretched agonizingly.

Her fellow SoMa artists stirred restlessly in their seats. Down at the opposite end of the row, Raven lit cigarettes for himself and Leslie. Leslie didn’t smoke. They had all heard this tired post-existential diatribe before–the soliloquy was designed to dramatize the moment. Katja was torn between wanting to see how it turned out and fleeing home to the safety of her Minna Street flat.

"So where does that get us? It gives us a theme, one which was worn out years ago. We have created nothing new in a long time. Max, Jack, Leslie, Raven, Sherman, Katja, and I."

A disconcerting rumbling swept the throng before them. What’ve we been doing then, Hayden, Katja protested.

"But this…this so-called post-existentialism lays existence at our feet…the grand lump of clay.

"The greatest loss is that of nature. We stand to lose more. This world–fucked. I contend that it is time to bring the uselessness of philosophy, its flaccid banter, into the realm of application. What good is it otherwise?

"This is where I may lose some of you."

Billowing smoke, Hayden stood up and left the window of the video screen. The camera shook and moved, redirecting the lens at the hearth, Hayden’s big stone fireplace. He appeared again, standing and animated.

"At the risk of sounding like a politician, I suggest we use what we know to create a basis for action." He smiled broadly, almost puckishly. Dramatic pause. "The California Depopulation Party." Now real mumbling and disorder broke over the audience. "Settle down now," Hayden said on queue. "Our planet is already on a steady course of destruction–we have the New Zealand catastrophe to attest to that. Aggravating all of that is overpopulation. Three million dead in India? Two million in Far Eastern Asia? When will it stop? When we stop it. The empowerment of post-existentialism (and I use such a term only so we all may understand) can provide the impetus to take the matter into our own hands. I may sound like some death-driven prophet, but through depopulation, through controlling life and death, we may ease the burden on our future generations."

The man on the video screens was a man transformed by righteousness, a manic expression that was either great persuasion or a textbook example of insanity. "Yes, it is harsh. Do we have a choice? The brutality of the final gasp of nature insists we resuscitate it by brutal means." Waving his arms about, gesticulating, emoting, he stopped and sat at the foot of the fireplace. "Too long have I spat at my audience worn-out Nietzscheisms. Indulge me by putting up with one more. ‘Many die too late, a few die too early. Die at the right time!’" Only his head, now full of wild hair and wild eyes, appeared at the bottom of the bank of monitors.

"Thus, I begin."

Video screens filled with grayish static, silent and portentous. Studio Null was mayhem. Grumbling, mumbling, stumbling, and clatter amidst the rows of folding chairs. The yellow lights came up, illuminating the shocked and questioning faces of those who remained of the SoMa Seven.

Raven stared glassy-eyed; Leslie finished her cigarette; Jack puffed nervously on a large, sweet-smelling joint; Sherman was politely and forcefully ordering everyone to leave; Max held his weary face in his hands; and Katja, distraught to the point of raving hysterically, fled the gallery to the back room, leaving a trail of wet mascara and panic.

The media fucks and wannabe hipsters surged once more with questions and complaints. Sherman had two policemen escort them out. They vacated without resistance once they realized they would receive nothing for their efforts.

This was his dream:

Jack Wong and Max Lazarus were both twenty-three. They had been out of the Art Academy for a year. Somehow, Jack, who worked for the Bay Weekly at the time, talked his way into the Hayden Kurtz story as photographer. The original photographer had literally been hit by a bus the day of the interview and a cover photo was still needed.

"You gotta let me come, Jack," Max begged excitedly as they passed a water-pipe back and forth in their cockroach-ridden 12th Street apartment. Their three bedroom flat was a messy conglomeration of drying prints and drying canvases. Hayden Kurtz was the latest literary rage in town at the time. Soon to be a national sensation. His book, Pestilence, had finally broken into the best seller list after a year on the shelves. Max had just finished the book; Kurtz had juiced Max’s brain with excitement, with affirmation.

"Man, I can’t just show up at his house with you," Jack protested.

"Why the hell not? He’s not going to tell me to go home. Just say I’m your assistant."

Jack thought about it a moment. His mental processes were somewhat thick with the cannabis. "Well, I guess so. But if I get chewed out for it, your keeping me in film for the next month."

"Done," Max agreed.

So Jack and Max went to Kurtz’s house, a god-awful green Victorian in the South of Market area. After ten minutes of buzzing and knocking at the front door, a bright-eyed Kurtz answered. Both Jack and Max were somewhat let down at his appearance: the author was scarcely older than them. He had wild and wavy hair, a mischievous expression, and the smell of alcohol on his breath. There was nothing writerly about him, except maybe that he was soused.

"Come on in," he said. "Can I get you two a beer? Sure I can. I’m entertaining a young female guest in the basement. Nothing to worry about . . . I take that back–she is something to worry about. Follow me." Apparently, he didn’t need to take breaths as he spoke. "You must be Jack Wong. Nice Nikon. And you," he said to Max. "I recognize you, too, from somewhere. You are?"

"I’m Max Laza–"

"Yes. Maximilian Lazarus. Yes, yes. Saw your stuff in the local artist exhibit at the MOMA. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And new. Love it. Watch that first stair, it’s tilted a little bit. You’ll like my guest: she’s absolutely amazing."

He led them downstairs to the cellar. It was dark and cozy and full of old furniture. Photographs of all the classic writers cluttered the low walls. The smell of liquor and cigarettes filled the air. A beautiful young woman, twenty or so, was stripped to the waist, seated on the far side of a card table, which was strewn with cards and liquor bottles. The young woman looked up at them and made no attempt to conceal her toplessness.

"What kind of card parlor are you running here, anyhow?" she complained. She swept up the cards and shuffled them. She had long brown hair, a striking, pale face, and, as far as Jack and Max were concerned, a great set of breasts. "All new-comers must take off their shirts and have a tequila shot."

Max gaped, and Jack nervously checked the settings on his camera.

"Gentlemen, meet Katja Chomski: actress and bon vivant. Katja, this is Jack Wong, from the Weekly, and the talented young painter, Max Lazarus. Have a seat, boys. Deal them in, Ms. Chomski. I’ll fetch some more beers. Feel free to take pictures, Jack–this is as good as it’s gonna get." Kurtz retrieved as many beers as he could carry from the small refrigerator under the stairs, set them on the table, and cracked his knuckles like the card sharp he was.

Katja tapped the cards impatiently. "I said ‘take off your shirts’ guys. I’m not going to be the only one with her tits hangin’ out." Then, with a dangerous smile, she poured two shots of tequila for them and gulped two more straight from the bottle. "All right, then. Five card stud–jokers are wild. Nice chest, painter-guy." Max had removed his t-shirt; bare-chested, Jack climbed around the room and up on furniture to get different angles with his camera.

"Print those in the Weekly, Jack!" Kurtz challenged as he took his seat next to Katja. "As you can tell with all these clothes on, I’m winning. You’ll have to see Katja’s new movie. What’s it called, Kat?" He studied his cards. "Uh-oh, looks like you’ll all lose more clothing. Can you change the CD, Mr. Wong? Pick anything you like. I don’t need any cards."

"‘Crazy Cock.’ It’s an adaptation of the Miller book," she answered Kurtz’s question. "You going to stare at my tits all day, painter-guy? I bet one sock–or stocking in my case."

"I see your sock and raise you a belt. Do earrings count? Jack, you playing or what?"

"I’m here to take pictures, painter-guy," he laughed at Max. He would be calling him "painter-guy" for several months. "Play my hand for me–I trust you."

"Stupid." Max peered at Jack’s cards. "Looks like you owe us a sock and a belt. Where are you from, actress-girl?"

"New York, of course. Nobody’s from San Francisco."

"I am," Jack admitted, standing high above them on a nearby coffee table.

"You don’t count."

"Yes, I do. Why do you think I have ten fingers."

"I could tell you, but you’d get mad."

"He has ten fingers so he can count f-stops," Kurtz put in. He laid down his cards. More clothing came off.

"Where are you from, Mr. Kurtz?" Max asked.

"Please, call me Hayden."

"Or wiseguy," Katja said.

"You call me daddy, Katja. You call me Hayden, Max. Jack can call me Dorian Gray. I hide the picture up in the attic. Maybe you can do a new one, Max. The other is looking a bit old, tattered, and wicked. It’s supposed to of course, but I need a few more years. Give me one card. I bet two shoes. Heels will do, my dear Ms. Chomski. You smoke grass, Max?"

"Like a chimney. Drafty in here, Katja?"

"Watch it, painter-guy," she said, pouring herself another shot and taking the joint from Max’s hand. "Are you going to play, Jack? You might as well get naked now and forget about it–wiseguy never loses. I fold."

Jack removed his clothes down to his underwear. His flash flashed, his camera clicked, his head reeled with strong marijuana. And as it would be with all card games in their soon-to-be-notorious future, Kurtz won the hand. This continued until all but Kurtz were naked and Jack ran out of film. Max eyed Katja’s nakedness; Katja studied Kurtz’s wry expression; Kurtz focused intensely on his beer; Jack put his clothes back on.

"What’re you guys doing tomorrow?" Kurtz asked.

The photos came out great.

Max smiled grimly at the dream, which was more history than dream. "Shit," he moaned at the shadowy bedroom. The shades glowed yellow at the edges and one was pulled up several inches–the sun shaft culprit. Traffic mocked him from the street. "Ssshhiiit," he groaned again in a lugubrious drawl. Max got to his feet and stumbled toward the door, taking care not to fall over any of the various mounds of laundry decorating the brisk hardwood floor.

"Shit," Max reasserted. Nothing stirred, nobody replied. "Shit?"

He cut through the studio to the front door, opening it a crack. The porch, often a haven for junkies, homeless, and salesmen, was vacant. Max lunged down to the fourth step, snatching up the Chronicle just as the cold, spring San Francisco air hardened his nipples and shriveled his scrotum. He quickly slammed the door, leaned his broad back against its inside face, let out a deep breath, and pulled the paper from its plastic sleeve. He unrolled it and read the front page headlines: India Famine Worsens, Record Heat in Antarctica, 30,000 Gather at Depop Rally, Kurtz’s Wake–His Final Say.

"Shit."

Rerolling the newspaper, he marched to the kitchen, yelling, "Rubi!?"

The coffee maker, left on by his ever-prancing lover, had burned the coffee down to a muddy, espresso-thick brew. Perfect. He poured himself a bowl, tiptoed across the cold tile with the newspaper, and sat on a barstool at the counter, naked, dangling, and hairy. Spreading the paper, he flipped to the "Datebook" section and found the feature article: "Kurtz’s Wake–His Final Say," by Francisco Puutz.

Puutz–what a joke, he thought. The only reason you’re hacking it out at the Chron is because you couldn’t cut it at the Weekly. The Bay Weekly, a very popular leftist rag in the manner of The Village Voice, had usurped all the Bay Area arts and entertainment readership for the last fifteen years. Max smirked. He both laughed at and scorned the local media with their sophomoric sensibilities and predatory eagerness. In the same fashion, he both enjoyed and loathed every article they had sucked from he and his friends.

Holding his testicles absently with his left hand, he read:

Max coughed up a hearty chuckle. Hell, hadn’t thought o’ that, he mused. Sherm could be puttin’ us all on.

But he knew Sherm wasn’t quite that ballsy. Besides, anything that can break Sherman’s frigid steel countenance was definitely something unplanned. Sherman, who had been the one to find Hayden dead, was nearly catatonic with sadness when he broke the bad news to his SoMa cohorts. To see Sherm that upset up was as disturbing as the news he bore. Then, the vague fanaticism Sherman had affected at Raven’s place, where the six compatriots had gathered afterward to seek refuge from the idiotic and ubiquitous regimen of media people. Such opposing moods in a short time frame from someone like Sherman were quite unsettling. That conversation, however, Max would ruminate over momentarily. There was still the article…

The Chronicle had printed only sections of the pro-Depop speech–the most provocative and zealous excerpts of course. Max winced at Hayden’s haunting words, cursed to himself, and gulped the stout-tasting coffee.

Max folded the paper and finished his coffee to the sound of traffic on Divisidero. The puttering of old combustion engines and the whine of electric cars, both going and coming and needlessly clogging the arteries of the City, found its way through the open window above the kitchen sink. Shoulda never moved outta the SoMa, Max thought.

Placing his coffee bowl in the already cluttered sink, Max experienced a surge of restlessness–a familiar restlessness. He couldn’t place it–it was like a word dangling from the tip of the tongue. Finding a semi-clean t-shirt in the garment swamp that was his bedroom, he covered his cold-hardened nipples. With a pair of sweat pants, he warmed his cold and shrunken genitals.

Max found himself standing skeptically at the edge of the splattered drop-cloth that covered the floor of his studio. In the past two years, he had started approximately thirty paintings and had finished none. All were, in his rigid artistic opinion, trash, lacking substance, lacking faith. Work that didn’t have faith in itself was useless. Two years ago he moved away from the South of Market warehouse district after a long and fruitful habitation in a Townsend Street loft; two years ago he began an incredible relationship with Rubidoux Carlton; two years ago he ran out of ideas.

The long fluorescent fixture overhead threw a merciless white light on the dusty room, and he immediately flicked it back off. Dusty candles crowded the stale room. One by one, he forced open the stiff and ancient wooden-framed Victorian windows, letting the cool April air stir about the dust, papers and loose canvas ends in the high-ceilinged room. With an old rag he indiscriminately dusted here and there, moved his huge chest of oils into the light, and, filling a coffee can with turpentine, began soaking a handful of various sized brushes.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t worked in two years–such was not the case. He had organized several shows of his previous work, collaborated with his friends on an array of pieces, and taught theory and technique classes at the University of San Francisco for three semesters. No, he had been busy. Also, being in love with Rubi Carlton was a time and energy consuming pursuit; it had kept him in a pirouetting daze for 27 months and four days–not that he was counting. In her presence, the only thing he could count were the stars orbiting his love-sick skull.

Blowing the dust off the paint-blotted telephone extension, he dialed up his former student assistant. "Yeah, is Darren there? Oh, it’s you. No, I don’t got a damn videophone–they’re irritating. Look, I gotta important one-time offer…naw, you don’t have to do nothin’ except drive your pick-up down here and pick up 20 or 30 slightly used canvases. …No, I’m not fucking with you, I just can’t use ’em–bad karma. Scrape ’em or paint over ’em and they’ll be as good as new…and free. One thing, though–you’ll have to promise me or I’ll wring your neck–you have to blank ’em out cuz it’s shit I’ve done over the past couple years and it’s crap and I wanna forget about it. …What’s that?…Yeah, I was considerin’ it…stretch the wings, ya know? Okay, I’ll see you in a few."

Max pulled a dust cover off of a low shelf on the south wall. Underneath was an old fashioned turntable–a record player. The compact disc killed the twelve-inch. On the shelf below were close to a hundred albums, all dating way back before 1990.

When Darren arrived, all hair and bones lost in a sea of paint-tainted fabric, he found Max scraping his canvasses of oils and acrylic to the sounds of good ol’ Elvis Costello.

"Don’t say it, Dar–just gimme a hand. Take off as much as you can."

Through a lopsided grin Darren replied, "All right, Mr. Lazarus." They’d gotten most of the way through the dense stack when Darren said, "You were right about this work," his expression bemused.

"Yeah, yeah…here, finish the last few at home, will ya? I trust you. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’."

As Darren loaded his truck, Max emptied his paint chest of crusty, dried-up tubes, hardened gesso and useless brushes. He dried the soaked brushes and put them in the empty glass beer pitcher that was their holder. Darren found him standing in front of a huge, sturdy easel, where one last canvas stood. Several candles on the window sill burned.

"Mr. Lazarus? I’m takin’ off. Thanks for all the canvasses–it’ll save my non-existent budget."

Instead of replying, Max stepped forward and lifted the bare five by four foot canvas and brought it to Darren. "You better take this one, too. Gotta start clean. All this stuff is polluted for me."

"Damn! Thanks, Mr. Lazarus."

"See ya, Darren," Max replied, turning back to rummaging through a pile of pine two-by-twos in the corner.

Darren stood with the canvas, barren except for a smear of portrait pink on the corner, and stared at Max’s broad back. "Are you going to teach next semester, Mr. Lazarus?"

Either the music was too loud or Mr. Lazarus chose not to answer. Darren decided against bothering the master anymore and left, puzzled and honored by his windfall.

Max fell into auto-pilot as he began constructing more canvasses. He never used ready-made canvases: it stole something of the process from him. Nail the two-by-twos into rectangular stretcher bars, cut the canvas, staple, stretch, staple, stretch alternately until you have your end-product ready for a coat of gesso. Spurred by a lazy Zeppelin tune on the record player, Max went over the events that followed the memorial service the previous evening, his hands hammering and stapling.

They walked down Howard Street in a melancholy gray parade, Raven and Max walked abreast followed by Leslie and Jack, with Sherman and Katja coming up from behind. The air was tepid with burgeoning spring but still held the cold, wet memory of winter.

Max suddenly made a right on 7th, and Raven stopped, the others blindly stumbling into him.

"Where are you going, Max?" he asked, knowing precisely where Max was going.

"I thought we’d go to Hayden’s cellar and rap and drink. I got the keys."

"That’s the last place I want to go…Jesus," complained Katja. She looked as though she might slap Max for even making such a presumption.

"Yeah, Max," agreed Jack. But his expression froze suddenly, and he drew a small camera from his jacket. "Hold it!"

"Goddamn it–" Too late: click, flash, back in the pocket. Max fumed, "Where then?"

"My place," said Raven. "I have plenty of booze." He continued down Howard and past the 7th street security post, his friends in silent tow. They ignored the two heavily armored policemen and their ever-cold gaze. "Besides, Rubi’s s’posed to show up to listen to the new master I mixed last week," he called back to Max, who remained on the corner.

Max forced his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat and followed. "You guys aren’t gettin’ the willies are ya?" No one turned around; his words bounced benignly off the backs of their heads, permitting him to continue. "Shit, if Hayden were a poltergeist, the only thing we’d have to worry about’d be our genitals!"

"Shut up, Max," Leslie told him without enthusiasm.

"Oh, or maybe it’s for sentimental reasons we don’t set foot on Kurtz’s property. Christ! The last thing he’d want is for us is to get sentimental about the whole thing. He’d want us to–"

"Right, Max," Jack interrupted without turning around, "he was the most romantic of all of us–he just tried his damnedest to hide it. I have pictures of him blithering like an idiot to prove it." They arrived at the foot of the stairway to Raven’s converted warehouse loft, piling up like fallen leaves in a stream’s eddy. "He’d want us all to be very sad and shaken. He offed himself for petty, romantic reasons, I’m pretty sure."

Katja spun around on Jack. "Fuck you, Wong." Her face was weary and strained with anger. "Have a bit of fucking reverence!"

"Chill out, Kat. Jeez." His Asian eyes became nothing but lines in his round face as he shook his head.

Sheridan put a bony hand on her shoulder, "Ignore him, Katja. He’ll go away." She turned and followed Sheridan up the stairs.

"Katja!" yelped Jack abruptly. She whipped around again, grimacing with weak rage. FLASH! went his camera. "Perfect."

"Asshole!" she hissed, moving down several steps toward him before Max cut in and intercepted her.

"C’mon, girlie, he don’t play fair," he said, consoling her.

"Jeez! Max is right–have a sense of humor! Everyone’s so glum!" Jack said. He was the last one up the stairs; he closed the door against the damp chill.

"We’re just not as stoned as you, Jacky," Max’s voice reverberated down the stairs. "But maybe you’ll change that."

"You betcha, Maxi-pad!" He took the stairs two at a time in happy kangaroo jumps.

The quarters of Raven, the dark metal overlord of San Francisco, resembled the wedding chamber of a gypsy and a mad scientist. A nest of cords crawled over the Persian-carpeted hardwood floor: guitar cords, electrical cords, power cables, coaxial cables–a den of rubber and metal technosnakes. It seemed impossible to not be constricted and swallowed. The colorful couches and chairs and chaise longues arranged around the thick, knotty redwood coffee table provided sanctuary from the serpent-cables. A giant Chitimacha Tribal mask adorned the wall above them, full of feathers and fright.

They planted themselves around the table, its surface littered with liquor bottles, ready for consumption. All one needed was a glass and some ice (and maybe a measure of courage) to find bliss in the cozy circle.

Raven stoked the fireplace behind them.

Fearing antagonism, Jack Wong’s relentless yet playful antagonism, Katja sat diagonal from him on a creaky, ivory colored chaise longue. In her hand was a Scotch and soda on the rocks. In her eye was a general depression-inspired malice for anyone who crossed her.

Jack walked the lighter side, however. His mentality concerning death sprang from a culture with an acceptance of death that neared nonchalance. Besides, he had been hanging out for over ten years with a group of people whose works typically represented death and life; he couldn’t be more cognizant of death and its many aesthetic faces if the Reaper bit him on the ass. His answer was a bong-load of skunky green marijuana which he passed around the circle, alternately declined and accepted.

"Hayden is dead," Leslie stated as if confirming the fact for the first time. She was a handsome woman, sexless and plain, with giant, muscular hands, riddled with welding burns. She looked fresh out the Kansas cornfields.

"Quite a declaration, indeed," Max commented. "Really, people, we’ve had days to indulge in gloom."

"Yeah, but, God, that video thing was a fucking trip," Raven wearily exhaled.

Sherman interjected at his friends, "What is extraordinary is that you realize it all has so little to do with the flesh." Pretentious, philosophic dialogue was his mainstay. He sat in lotus position at one end of the long, reddish Indian-motif couch. He passed the waterpipe to Max and exhaled white-blue smoke. "I mean, we all saw him at the viewing this morning, but it wasn’t him. We know his personality, the force of the ego. The body provided us with something to look at. He’s dead, but you can’t snuff out his idea."

"Totally," Raven agreed, burping beer fumes. "You realize they’re separated. That, like, who they are is just this character we make up. No thanks, dude." The bong made its smoky journey past Raven, past Leslie, made a brief stop with Ms. Chomski, and then back to that crazy Jack, buried in the depths of an overstuffed recliner.

Max said, "I’ve spent more than a decade with some of you dopes, and most of the shit we come up with has something to do with death, but none of it fucking prepared us for this. Not one of us considered the idea of one of our own dying."

Shaky with grief, Katja finally spoke up, "Yeah, and what do we do instead of mourn? Instead of taking the loss? We kill it with our usual pseudo-intellectual crap. Our friend…a great writer…is dead, for crying out loud. Why do we have to butcher the moment with pedantic bullshit?!" A trembling hand up-ended three fingers of single malt into an ice-filled tumbler.

"Look," Max offered, "we’re just as sorry as you, Katja. But this is what we do–what we’ve always done. If Hayden were here, and it was me who croaked, he’d be doing the same thing…except more feverishly." He gulped the olive and chased it with the martini. "Besides, it’s different for you–Hayden brought you in. And there were those romantic complications…"

Katja snorted.

Leslie finally broke her meditative silence. "So do we know how he did it? What he took?"

"Oh, Leslie…" Katja moaned.

"Good question," Raven agreed.

"Poison," Sherman said. "He drank a highly toxic form of India ink–the brand he used to fill his old fountain pen."

"He always did have a talent for irony," Leslie commented. She took little sips from a tall glass of water. Straw-like hair fell into her cornflower blue eyes.

"Damn it, Leslie…" Katja moaned again.

"C’mon, Kat–we’re tryin’ to sort this whole thing out," Max told her. The way he was stirring his martini didn’t convince her of his dutiful reverence.

"So what does it mean?" Raven asked. He picked up an acoustic guitar and half-heartedly picked wispy arpeggios. "So yeah, he made an obvious artistic suicidal gesture, but he knew–or shoulda known–that half his audience wouldn’t make the connection, and the other half would condemn it for being theatrical."

"Raven…" Katja protested.

"He did it for the media fucks," Sherman told them calmly. He sucked viciously on Raven’s waterpipe, running with his idea. "Admittedly, Hayden did sometimes delve pathetically into the romantic. But he knew we knew he did…uh…yeah, and most everything else–that is, any action that was remotely subtle–would be lost on the stupid masses. So he did it to gain the attention and respect of the media fucks so he could get coverage for his Depop cause."

Max scratched his jaw pensively. Katja stared glassy-eyed at Sherman. Leslie wore no expression. Raven nodded slowly, and Jack said, "I think yer fuckin’ stoned, Shermy!" and giggled.

"Maybe I am, but Hayden was a pretty calculated individual."

Max shook his head, "I can’t believe you guys are sayin’ he did it for a cause. He was fuckin’ depressed! He hadn’t written anything but articles for the New Yorker and Rolling Stone for years. He was getting scared of his art."

Who’s scared of their art, Max? they all thought to themselves.

"Give him more credit than that," Raven interjected.

"What does that mean?"

"Depressed? We’re all depressed! Look at us–depression is art!"

"Killing himself to make a point? That is ridiculous."

"It’s a better reason than depression–at least where one of us is concerned," Raven persisted. His coarse black hair fell about his brown visage. His locks seemed to writhe in concurrence with their master’s morbid convictions.

"But why for a cause like the damn Depop Party?"

"Because it’s a good cause," Sherman broke in. His knife-like face was pressed forward onto the tips of his fingers as though he were in prayer.

"It’s a fucked cause!" Max blurted.

"I agree," said Jack.

"How so?" asked Raven. He sipped from a bottle of oily dark stout.

"Well, for one, they believe in decimating a ‘percentage of randomly chosen world citizens’ to relieve the population crisis."

"That’s bullshit, dude. They just want people to stop makin’ kids. Maybe euthanize some of the ancient and terminally ill…"

"Wrong. If you read the fine print–if you read some of the more radical Depop stuff–they say that euthanasia is the least they want to do."

"Some dilemmas call for harsh solutions," Sherman philosophized. His eyes were bleary red orbs sunken into a brooding lizard-man façade.

"What the fuck is wrong with you guys?!" Max leapt to his feet. The waning yellow daylight and gray broth of cigarette smoke made Max Lazarus a faded, dancing figure in the cavernous old warehouse space. "You know exactly what will happen if any CDP ideology is instated. First, they’ll use it for about a year pretty much as planned; then it will become an excuse to rid the society of supposed ‘burdens’: the aged, the sick, the criminal, and the insane. Then it’ll turn into third millennia death squads, offing dissidents and the ‘unwanted’–the intelligensia and the artists and any asshole with half a cortex. People will simply disappear like they did in Peru and El Salvador back in the seventies, eighties and nineties. This isn’t a prescription for humanitarian and environmental problems. The Depop movement is a blue print for homicidal totalitarianism!"

Jack clapped with cherubic glee. Max, who realized he had raised his voice from a normal speaking volume to a shout, punctuated his sermon by quickly seating himself and once again draining his conical martini glass.

"Awww, mellow out, Laz," Raven said. "Lose the soapbox, man. The Depop–California or otherwise–wants only enforced birth control and maybe euthanasia. That’s it."

"People are going to die regardless," Sherman said in a steady monotone. "If nothing is done, the population will continue its exponential expansion and nature will take care of the problem for us–but without conscience and without regard."

Raven was with him, "And the lower classes will totally rebel in a violent revolution and even more’ll die." He stood and gazed at his comrades, each looking absorbed and momentarily forgetting why they were gathered there. He decided, "Let me tell you about Hayden, about the day before he died."

Raven snuffed out his cigarette and stood up, sinewy olive-brown arms gesticulating with intensity. His strange mix of African, Natchez, and French ethnicity cast inexplicable shadows on his features even in the brightest of light. "He was pretty damn tanked when I arrived. Tight, as he would say. He’d been drinking Smirnoff’s from the bottle and had killed most of it. ‘You’re on the full rampage, man,’ I told him. He mixed me a drink and had me sit down in front of his big video, told it to play three or four times before it recognized his drunken voice. It was a goddamn Depop propaganda film, complete with skeleton children from Mexico City and statistical bar graphs showin’ how the world is going to shit and everything." Raven nervously ran his fingers through his long mane and lit another smoke. "Well, he took his time makin’ my drink, and I started getting the heebie-jeebies watching that scary Depop crap. Finally, he came in with a Bloody Mary–he was still chuggin’ straight from the bottle–and was all in my face. ‘Like it?’ he asks. He looked like hell, three-day meth bags sliding from his eyes down his face. Nose bright red. Stinking like a dead rat. ‘Like it?’ he says, and I go, ‘Naw, man…it’s freakish. It’s like Nazi propaganda films.’ And he just goes stiff on me, like I called his mother a whore, or like that time Max and Jack pantsed him on network TV."

Max whistled with awe.

"That mad?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Raven continued, consumed with the story-telling. "And then he starts rattling off all these statistics, like the ones on his video, stuff like: ‘D’you know that even after those five million deaths in Mexico City, there’s still 25 million souls and the number should reach 40 million in ten years.’"

"If they’re not all dead," Sheridan broke in.

"That ‘zillions of bodies will be breathing the planet’s polluted air by next decade. With each’ –what’d he call it– ‘Malthusian expansion, a direct ratio of crap will be littering the planet or littering our gene pool or littering something.’ It was insane–with every point, Hayden’s face got more red, his voice got more biting and hoarse, and he was blowin’ spit all over the place and looked like he was gonna brain me with his goddamn vodka bottle. He said, ‘The world’s food supply will fail and our own’ll disappear and…’"

"Stop it," Katja pleaded.

"Hayden was right, though," Sheridan said. "We live in a global community. The airlines and space planes have made the world a small place. While Americans, cushioned by a wealth of money and resources, may not feel the confinement and pressure of overpopulation, the rest of the world has reached human critical mass. Too many crazy lab rats in a one-way Skinner Box. The borders will snap, like they did in India in 1998–the boundaries crushed and forgotten under the frantic heels of the starving masses…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Max voiced sarcastically. "And the Beast will come upon the earth, and locusts will swarm, and barbarians will ravage, and the four steeds of judgment shall cast their divine gloom upon the–"

"Will you both fucking shut up!!" Katja screamed. "I feel bad enough that Hayden’s gone–I don’t need his last, confused and anguished words as my final fucking memory of him. Fuckin’- A!" Her fists were clenched threateningly around a whiskey bottle.

"Take it easy," Raven cooed, seating himself

Sherman shrugged and sat down. "Pass the bong, Jack."

"Still–I can’t see ‘killing to save’ as any reasonable solution, folks," Max insisted. "There are more humanitarian solutions–not that I’m any great fuckin’ humanitarian or anything. The solution will be more complex than the last-ditch-effort reasoning of the Depop movement."

"I think you’re all way too high," Jack accused. His wily expression was becoming diluted with seriousness.

"What does this have to do with Hayden?" Katja pleaded.

"We’re trying to figure out if the Depop Party is worth killing yourself over," Leslie summarized, a bit surprised by hearing her own voice.

"Do you really think Hayden did it because of that?" Katja asked, more to herself.

"Yes," Sherman and Raven chimed.

"No," Jack and Max agreed.

They all looked at Leslie with expressions of desperately needed approval. She felt sick. A gulp of icy water slid down her bony throat. "Don’t look to me for affirmation, fellas. I don’t know why anyone would commit suicide."

Four disappointed sighs.

Rubidoux Carlton, lithe, delicate and smoking a cheroot, suddenly materialized in the doorway near the top of the stairs at the far end of the room. The cheroot was part of her constant (and futile) effort to exude a hard exterior. Her ghostly image seemed miraculous to Max, a divine appearance come to lift their black moment.

"Hey, guys and gals," she greeted, snuffing out her thin cigar in a nearby ashtray. But she didn’t look herself. The strange memorial service from which she had departed early, had shaken her considerably. "You all look like you’re having one of your discussions, I’ll come back…"

Her presence, Max had come to discover, cast clouds of inhibition upon his comrades. Whenever she entered the room, their conversation changed to party-chatter, to above-the-surface dialogue. It seemed insulting to Max, as if Rubidoux couldn’t comprehend such lofty thoughts. But Max found he was guilty of the same phenomenon. He realized, though, that it wasn’t a condescending reaction to Rubi. Their sudden shift in depth was designed to protect her from their heavy, pervasive gloom. They all liked Rubi, in fact it was Raven who "brought her in." She still, however, was not "one of them"–she had come too late. She didn’t synchronize with their cynical outlook, their meditative skepticism, their bleak-yet-generative embrace with harsh existential realities. Missed the post-existential showboat. She was unburdened with darkness, which led to the question of her presence in the midst of the SoMa Seven in the first place. It may have had something to do with the intact state of her psychic hymen.

Raven befriended her at a club called The Underground four years earlier. She had been dancing with hypnotic slowness in her underwear while under the influence of someone’s homemade psychotropic potion. Her dreamy and innocent eroticism prompted Raven to use her in a rock video he was filming the following day. Portraying a not-so-reluctant rape victim, she was dubbed the newest SoMa Seven breakthrough. The video’s brutality and intentional misogyny was hailed as brilliant, and Rubi, trained in ballet but driven by modern dance, was immediately booked with screen appearances and music video spots across the nation, each performance more prurient and violent than the last. Her grand achievement was her portrayal of Gretchen in the stylized version of Goethe’s Faust, Part I, rewritten as a rock opera by Sheridan, Kurtz, and Raven. Rubi’s demure yet seductive countenance provided a beautiful stage for prelapsarian cataclysm, virgin exploitation.

Max, who happened to own a soft spot for such sexual brutality, was immediately moved by the performance and pursued amorous relations with Rubidoux. He still felt like the pursuer, the hapless victim of his beloved. Hooked.

And there she was, knowing full well that she didn’t quite fit in, about to leave.

"That’s all right, Rubi," Leslie explained. "We’d just arrived at a ridiculous stalemate and Sherman and Max are far too stoned for their own good."

Looking at each other, the two men shrugged.

"I want to hear the new mix, Raven," said Rubi, who removed her black vinyl slicker and tousled her short, pixie hair, which just happened to be dyed a royal blue that day (always indicative of a mood swing). The rocker looked at his friends, seeking some sort of consent to bow out of their bullshit session.

"I should probably be going, too–I’m beat," Max said, making his exit. The Restlessness had settled over him.

"Yeah, me, too," Leslie agreed.

"Three," said Katja.

Rubi crossed her arms. "C’mon, you guys, I didn’t mean to break anything up."

Katja approached her, donning her tuxedo jacket. "Believe me, Rube, you saved us from a terrible rhetorical hell."

At the top of the stairs, Max kissed Rubi on the cheek. It was the changing of the guard. Max and his dark musings going off duty and replaced by the ethereal mindset of Ms. Carlton.

"See you at home," he remarked, straightening the lapel on her sleeveless knit shirt.

"I may be really late," she pre-apologized, smoothing his clenched hand, making the tense coil of muscle there a docile creature.

The three left Raven’s dwelling and walked up to 7th again, where Katja split off into a different direction, back past the out-house-size security post. "Hasta luego," Katja called.

"Try to get some sleep," Max called back.

Walking down the street with him, Leslie had to keep up with his pace. She watched him as he walked: bulky and lumbering.

"So what is it with you and Rubi these days, Mr. Lazarus?" she asked, already a bit winded.

"Nothing."

"Right."

"I just can’t think straight when I’m around her, y’know?" They marched in silence. "Kind of like I don’t need to think when she’s around," he added.

"Lose yourself in her?"

"Maybe."

"Who needs to think when the keystone of your broken humanity has been repaired?"

Max came to a halt. "‘Keystone to my broken humanity?’ Gimme a break. You sound like fuckin’ Hayden."

"Somebody’s got to wax poetic now that he’s not around."

Max resumed his long, quick strides, now and then crooking his head as if to listen.

"Where are we going, pray tell?" Leslie asked.

"Hear that?"

She heard nothing but rumbling traffic and an occasional car horn. But as they approached a flotsam-strewn crevasse between two mighty skyscrapers down the street from the Folsom Street nightclubs, she found a distinct, slurring saxophone ricocheting off the mirror-like windows. A shoddily dressed man, black as a cup of French Roast, blew his horn from the gap between the two buildings. He squeaked to a stop when he caught sight of Max.

"You again, White Man."

"Hey, Billy, play me something happy."

"I don’t do requests…for free," he told him, scrutinizing his lady-friend with a hungry eye. "Don’t yo’ woman make you happy, White Man?"

"My woman makes me too happy," Max admitted. "I can’t even think."

"What you gotta think ’bout anyhow?"

"Coltrane, Coltrane, Coltrane."

Leslie stood by, smiling at Billy.

"That’s all you white guys want–mothafuckin’ Coltrane. You don’t know nothin’ else do you?" Billy shook his head in mock disgust. "Gimme a dollar, then." Max dropped a bill into the open sax case.

The musician started in a fluid scale, drowning out the automobiles on nearby Market Street with ’Trane’s Slo Blues. Leslie and Max stared at each other’s shoes as he played. When he finished, Billy assayed his patrons’ faces and asked intuitively, "So who died, White Man?"

Frankly, this startled Max and he answered evasively, "Seems the world’s dying, Billy."

"Oooh…you’re so cryptic and daaark," Billy jeered. "Sooo political. Whachu know ’bout death, anyhow?"

"Whachu know about politics, Black Man?" Leslie broke in impulsively. Billy scowled.

"Hot air and game playing and useless is what I know ’bout politics, smart girl." He blasted his horn at her, making her jump back.

"Hear about the Depopulation Movement?" Max asked him, drawing him out more. At this point, however, he preferred music to talk.

"Contrary to what White Man thinks, Black Man can read. Movements are for bowels. This mothafuckin’ state is one big sphincter. Depop’s nothin’. Don’t got no front man, anyhow."

"They have Daryl Knox," Leslie put in.

"Just another white turd falling out of a crack." Billy seemed to be getting irritated. So was Max.

He dropped another bill into the case. "Enough of this shit. Play something sweet."

Shaking his head, Billy made his saxophone croon an atonal replication of "America the Beautiful."

Leslie was laughing, but Max was walking away.

Conventional jet planes were much less expensive, much more relaxing and owned a smoother ride. But they took four times as long. In the name of short attention spans and limited patience, technology yielded the Trans-Atmospheric Plane, commonly referred to as the space plane.

What really annoyed Max was the lack of sexual opportunity in the lavatories.

"You know," he told Rubi in the next seat as the craft zoomed silently over the North Pole. "In the old days, you could fool around in the bathroom, or smoke a joint–anything. Now you can’t even go near an airport with dope because of all their hyper-sensitive drug sniffing equipment. Then, when you get on the plane, the goddamn space plane, your stomach drops out on take-off, gravity takes a sabbatical, and just about the time you get the hang of sub-gravity and decide for a little nookie in el baño, you’re landing in Munich. You used to have time to read a book. Now you barely have time to get drunk."

Rubi adjusted her headphones, "You say something?"

Max shook his head and shrugged, "Just bitching because I had to get up before noon."

"Tragic, Maximilian." She patted his leg and continued to read a novel by some self-inflated first-time novelist. Her hand trembled and writhed at the end of her arm, disinterested in its owner’s activity. Max watched it inch its way along the surface of his black wool slacks. He eyed his graceful mistress absorbed in the book, oblivious to her hand. It crawled toward his crotch with diabolic purpose. He dared not move. Christ! What is she reading? he wondered. Fingers took a firm hold on his clothed groin and pressed with a persistent but not uncomfortable pressure.

Max reached for her hand, knocking over the paper cup of water on the pull-out seat tray. It floated casually down to the tightly knit carpet. The water droplets beaded strangely in mid-air until they met the floor. His big, warm, rough painter’s hand covered her delicate fingers.

"Don’t…you’re making me…see how it is? We’re almost gonna land. Damn technology!" he whined, putting her hand back in her lap.

"What did you say?" Rubi asked, looking up from her book and lifting her left earphone.

"Nothin’."

"Good," she said, turning on the headset and smiling.

Why was it that Max and the gang of SoMa artists detested the press so intensely? Hadn’t they brought the artists to fame? Hadn’t the media publicized, played scribe, found beauty, lifted the lowly nobodies into the grand arena of immortal greatness? Maybe.

But there are several reasons Max and company turned rabid when a reporter violated the interior. Several reasons for sudden belligerence toward an annoying gnat of a photographer. Paradox of the lie and the truth. A minor example: in an interview early in Max’s career (he called it his pseudo-classicism period: a period in which the intent of his art, the composition, was based on classical allegory composed of modern figures), he was asked, "What is art," by some schmaltzy art reviewer. A banal and loaded question, an inquiry demanding Max’s unnegotiably true feelings. He replied, "I like the provocative. What? Is art supposed to provoke emotion necessarily? I prefer it but by no means is it true. It can be aesthetically experimental, visual foolery. Everyone has the right to label, but nobody is right." The reporter, seemingly miffed at a wide open response to a wide open question, misquoted Max as saying simply, "Art is supposed to be provocative." The effect was two-fold: first, it placed Max in a category, a pigeon-hole; secondly, the finality of it ironically raised Max to the level of sagacious artiste, one who forces his version of truth upon an audience. Many covet this position, but it simply wasn’t Max, and the delimiting nature of such a role (one forced upon him again and again) burdened him with a following of artists who craved his "truths."

The paradox exists in that many a journalist is a liar demanding the truth. What is the difference between a misquote and lie, hyperbole and fabrication, distortion and manipulative, untruthful interpretation? Nada. Yet by all of these methods, the local (and often national and international) media, a decidedly capricious and trendy gang of meatheads, shaped what was to become the inimitable SoMa Seven. A group whose wrongs were interpreted as rights, whose antagonisms (often toward the same journalists who sculpted their image) were considered justified outcries; a group of artists whose cutting-edge style was mimicked by everyone. The seven artists tried everything to crush their own personae, each exploit worse than the last, their statements becoming more irreverent and politically incorrect. Max would paint the favorite liberal politicians into his work, portraying them in compromising positions; the weeklies would praise him for playing devil’s advocate. Raven would lampoon the media in his songs; the media would use terms like "brilliant commentary" in their reviews. Jack would purposely compose photo essays in very poor taste to irritate reviewers; every magazine wanted them. Katja slid back into soft-porn B-movies; they hailed her as a rare, integrity-driven artist in search of on-the-edge material. Hayden plainly railed against everything he could rail against, and he was elevated to literary god-hood. Sherman was just Sherman and was indecipherable: a media hero. Leslie had the only non-confrontative approach; she was the only one whom the media didn’t pester; she was the only one who produced consistent work. Thus fame swallowed them whole, chewed them up, and was waiting ever-so-patiently to vomit them back into the Land of Nobodies.

Max (and most of the SoMa Seven) waited eagerly for that moment. With the decline of their popularity over the last few years, it seemed beautiful obscurity might be close at hand. And he had considered that maybe Hayden had gotten tired of waiting and decided to get the last cruel laugh on the gullible press. Infamy was terribly burdensome. Glory is a pallid panacea in the face of life in public scrutiny.

"Media fucks!" Max shouted one day when a mob of slavering and greedy newshounds huddled in a choking mass around an appendicitis-stricken Leslie. The press had showed up uninvited to a Kurtz publication party and had gotten bored of the artists and their button-lipped ways. Leslie went down, and they were on her like leeches. Max had to beat them off her just to let the paramedics through. The media fucks term had stuck and was chiseled permanently into the SoMa Seven vocabulary. It was one soundbite that never made it to the public ear. Media fucks often lack the ability of self-effacement.

The Euro-press differed only slightly from the American press. They were a bit more serious and a little less demanding, but they still had a nose for carrion. Nevertheless, he refrained from calling them media fucks to their faces.

Only four European journalists met him at the gate inside the noisy terminal. Hiding behind the winsome Ms. Carlton did no good.

"Wird der Tod einen Einfluss auf Deine Arbeit am Museum XY haben?"

"Nur wenn er bei der Vernissage auftaucht," Max said, pushing past.

"Comment est ton nouveau matériel?"

"Mon nouveau matériel? Comme rien du tout," replied Max, squeezing through a family bedecked in Euro-Disney regalia.

"Questo é il mio biglietto da visita. Andiamo a colazione," the Italian woman demanded.

"Ecco la mia colazione," Max countered, handing her a foil package of Airline peanuts. "Lasciamo perdere."

"Mr. Lazarus…" began the Brit.

"Aaaaahhhhh!!" Max screamed in his face, breaking into a run in the opposite direction. Rubi laughed and started after him.

"But your limousine is waiting, sir!" the man explained.

• • • •

The Depopulation Movement had become a pebble in the shoe of Sherman Sheridan’s conscience; the ideas were uncomfortable and distracting. He needed to sit down, shake it free, and take a look at it. So when a Depop fund raiser was heralded throughout town, Sherman decided he would pay a visit (as in pay cash) and find out what the radical liberal California populace was so strung-out about. Shake the rock out of his boot.

The media fucks made him reluctant, however. The busy-body bastards would be coming out of the walls and going out of their minds in the ecstasy that radical new movements imparted. The liberal dailies and weeklies hadn’t whole-heartedly embraced Depopulation ideology, for no respected celebrity, statesman, or sports hero had endorsed it. Except maybe Hayden Kurtz. No living celebrity. Hell, the journalists and editors couldn’t just go ahead and believe in something on their own! The waters needed to be tested and public opinion evaluated before the media could popularize and dilute it. The news people would swarm around like angry hornets until some well-known sucker spoke out in favor; then they would be on that individual like carrion wasps on rotting flesh.

Sherman rummaged through a box of stage make-up and novelty trash in the dirty white bathroom of his vacuous loft down the road from Studio Null. A nameless street urchin who had followed him home from Haight Street several days ago appeared in the doorway behind him. He ignored the youngster, selecting a tuft of thick hair that resembled a dark caterpillar.

"Whaz that?" the boy asked in a squeaky nasal whine. Sherman didn’t answer, but instead combed a sticky colored powder into his trimmed red hair, tinting it a dark brown. Then a bit of gray.

"Whatcha doin’?"

The teen was difficult to ignore, his reflection cruelly reminding Sherman that he was several years from legally attaining his driver’s permit. The youth’s entire body seemed to be pierced with rings–ears, nose, eyebrows, lips, and nipples. His second-hand clothes stank of sex and alcohol. Underneath the boy’s gritty exterior he could almost discern the little cub scout he might have been if raised by a good Christian family.

"Run along. Go home. I have got things to accomplish."

He sneered. "Fuckin’ perv wants to kick me out now. I knew it."

"Leave, or I’ll call some golden-hearted runaway hotline to take you back to your groping step-daddy."

His sneer fell. Tears welled up. Cheeks reddened and pulsed. He switched to teetering on the other leg. Sherman turned stormily toward him and drove cold adult eyes into his broken adolescent psyche. Backing out slowly, the teenager exited the bathroom. Sherman heard rummaging noises somewhere and wondered vaguely which of his possessions the boy was taking in revenge for his kink and cruelty. The front door slammed. The performance artist worked the flesh-colored putty in his hand methodically, considering the assortment of false noses in the box in front of him. Glancing up into the mirror, he caught his narrow face smiling impishly without his approval. He let it stay.

Flashback.

Shortly after Jack, Max, Hayden, and Katja began to meet regularly, Sherman Sheridan started to hang himself from the neck all over town. It caused quite the stir, especially after the Weekly labeled it performance art.

Sherman Sheridan was a first generation Brit, recently relocated from Southern California. His parents were hipsters in the great years of SoHo: artist-miscreants of British Bohemia. When the hashhish wore off, they found themselves in Hollywood with a little boy. They survived on bit movie parts and restaurant work. Thus, little Shermy Sheridan grew up weird and got weirder. Everybody knew he’d really lost touch when he dropped out of acting school to hitchhike to San Francisco with the idea of becoming some sort of artist.

One of his first performance gags was to hang himself. Sheridan would attach a rope to a special vest worn under his coat. The rope was attached loosely to a dummy-rope that he knotted around his neck like a hangman’s noose. With the help of a friend named James Ramón Blackhawk, he would be hoisted up onto a streetlight and hang, twisting motionless: an urban lynching, a public execution. The first few times, the police cut him down and told him to go home. Then his was arrested, once, twice, thrice.

Later, Sheridan admitted his favorite blurb about the piece was:

"Sheridan’s statement reverberates through public conscience like a presidential assassination. We know what it means, and through the sheer atrocity of its implications, we are ashamed to the core. Sheridan is half Chris Burden, half Evil Knievel."

He last hung himself outside of Jack’s and Max’s apartment building, in front of Max’s bedroom. Max woke to see Sheridan twisting horrifically outside his window, the slight breeze blowing him back and forth. Because he’d strung himself in the alley behind the apartment, no one had noticed him and he’d been hanging all morning. Max was hardly shocked; he’d been following Sheridan’s story for weeks.

After making a cup of coffee, Max opened the window, leaned out and said, "I knew we’d meet sooner or later, Sheridan, but I didn’t think it would be like this."

Sheridan, who’d fallen asleep, suddenly opened his eyes upon Max like a corpse waking from the dead. "Good morning, Mr. Lazarus. It is still morning isn’t it?"

"Barely."

"It’s about time you noticed me."

"You know, if you wanted to meet me so bad, we could’ve met for a drink or something."

"Excuse me, but could you just hurry up and sketch me or something? You think I’m doing this for my benefit?"

Max watched Sheridan’s body slowly rotate away from him. "I guess you’re right." Max fetched his sketchpad, knowing he’d never get another chance to sketch a hanged man from his window again.

After about thirty minutes, Sheridan asked, "How’s it coming?"

"Almost done."

A few more minutes went by.

"Mr. Lazarus?"

"Yes."

"Could you do me a big favor and . . . CUT ME THE HELL DOWN!"

"I’m not through yet."

"Hurry, for Christ’s sake. I’ve got to pee. Usually the police have cut me down by now." There was a terribly bored expression on Sheridan’s face.

"Should’ve hung yourself on Howard Street."

"Howard Street was last week. This was purely for your benefit."

"You’re getting delusional. I’ll get you down."

Max let Sheridan down and invited him in for a cup of coffee. Two days later, Max, Jack, Katja, and Sheridan went to hear Hayden read at Cody’s in Berkeley. Two more to crazies to go.

• • • •

Like every place else, the Bay Area had its land barons. One of them sat with his wife at Sherman’s table. Or was she his niece? Also at his table was a famous Jewish restaurateur and a text book publisher.

"What’s your business, Mr. Wiley?" the land baron demanded in a deep, arrogant voice. He was on his fourth whiskey sour.

"Yeah, I’m an importer, see," Sherman crooned in an adult version of that street urchin’s whine. "I import…ahh, vitamins from, ahhh, Asia." He could feel the row of plastic front teeth come loose every time a hard consonant passed his lips. The protruding buck teeth tended to make him lisp; he was pleased with the effect. Purposely, he slopped a bit of marinara sauce down his shirt and pretended to ignore it.

"I hear there’s good money in that. Of course Knox's platform must interest you quite a bit, seeing as Asia is in a big time population crisis."

"Uh-huh." He gulped some ice water, wishing to God the Baron would go back to feeling up his niece.

"Test…test…test…one, two, three…," echoed through the foggy PA system.

With an air respect, Sheridan shifted his polyester-adorned frame toward the podium. The gigantic turn-out (the buzzing journalists occupied more seats than non-journalists) quieted their drone several dozen decibels.

Sherman was safe. Invisible. A distasteful thirty year-old leisure suit filled out by a pillow-gut and accented by drooping, fake jowls and a cheesy, paste-on mustache. His British angularity was metamorphosed into Middle-American doughiness. Not one media fuck rested a greedy eye upon him.

For a political gathering, he was not as sickened as he imagined he would be. He had a hard time placing the un-political component of the atmosphere. Was it…authenticity? Yes. Not much, mind you, but he could detect a bit of the authentic, a tad of sincerity. It had the smell of idealism.

"Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, and believers," said the master of ceremonies. A large globe of the earth in crisp holo-video floated above and behind her. It alternately faded into an eye, set in a pyramid–the Illuminatus–the Depopulation Party’s symbol. Sherman recognized the tall Asian as a city councilwoman. "The future is alive with a new consciousness. Political self-determination for the species. Feel proud that you are at the genesis of a pro-human political party, a party that embraces the living systems of the planet and believes in perpetuating the species not by preaching economic growth and strategic military gain, but by introducing a new ideology that will keep us mighty by keeping our growth–growth in a wide sense–in check." She smiled handsomely and was met with applause. "Enough of my prattle, though. Meet the future Governor of California, Daryl Knox."

"My thanks to you all," he said grandly, his arms spread beatifically. His hair was short, straight, and dusty blond; his facial features unlined and ageless; his body thin and fit. "Robert Malthus predicted early in the 19th century that the world would someday outstrip its food supply. This concept of exponential multiplication, this ‘Malthusian Trap,’ was scoffed at for two hundred years." He paused, staring, it seemed, into each an every face. The moment was pregnant with anticipation. Nervous and idle scuffling echoed in the corners of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. "World population, year 1800: approximately 1 billion; world population, year 2000: six point five billion. Any questions?" His second dramatic pause was filled with nervous coughs and worried grumbling. Sherman, polyester ass frozen in its seat, tapped his fingers along the rim of his empty water glass.

"What have we been thinking all this time? That because we happen to be the most adaptive and ingenious species on the planet that we have the right to overrun it? That we owe ourselves ‘suigenocide?’ I hate to say it, but our problems–pollution, global warming, famine–can be traced back to these numbers–these numbers and the technology such a population growth engenders. We’ve already become a state of security districts and food riots; we’re one step from the catastrophes that the rest of the world is experiencing right now. It’s time for new ideals, new plans and someone to implement them. Our species is like a person with the barrel of a loaded gun in its mouth. It is time to take the gun out, unload it, and rethink our situation."

Sherman found himself viciously clenching his glass. Knox's rhetoric sounded like more than just phatic noise. He breathed out, attempting to relax. He must not let this idealistic doomsayer upset him. He shifted in his seat, glancing around at the other guests with their name cards and cocktails. Someone caught his eye–Raven, sitting beside Katja several tables away. Raven stared at Sherman’s get-up and shook his head. Shake your head, Mr. Rock and Roll, Sherman thought, But I bet none of the others know you two are here either. Sherman shrugged at him. Everyone, including Raven and Katja, appeared to be paralyzed in apocalyptic terror, attentive to Knox’s legislative, social, and economic platform–a bizarre mixture of leftist ideas delivered with the cold intensity of right wing fanaticism.

After the rest of his speech, the questions started:

Media Fuck 1: It sounds like your platform is based on armageddonism and designed to scare up votes…

Knox: Armageddon is a romantic notion. The precipitous path humanity has chosen, however, is very real and does scare me–into action.

MF2: Your basic measures to control population growth in California lie in subsidized birth control, pro-choice ideology, tax incentives to childless couples, and huge cuts in welfare. There have been rumors from more extreme factions of the Depopulation Party about euthanizing the old and terminating the criminal. There has also been talk of terminating a random percentage of the population. What is your stance on these extreme views?

Knox: Some of our supporters are a bit over-zealous [broad smile, laughs from crowd]. I am tempted to sympathize with them–the crisis is severe–but I’m afraid such steps are beyond our present scope [nervous titter and agreement from audience].

MF Wendy O’Neil: You mentioned Malthus, but failed to mention Adam Smith, who stated that animals only multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and that no animal can multiply beyond it. [crowd hushes, waiting for Knox to respond] Doesn’t that mean that we’ll never outstrip our food supply? Doesn’t that mean that nature will take care of her own?

Knox: [Intense] Nature does indeed take care–Mexico City food riots of ’98: 500,000 killed outright, not to mention the millions that have died of starvation since. India famine of ’02–revolution and exodus: 700,000 dead. [almost shouting] Are we going to wait for nature to take care of us or are we going to take care of ourselves! I don’t want people to die needlessly before we finally take control! [applause]

The finished the program. The MC made a few salutary statements and wished everyone a good night. Outside the auditorium, Sheridan observed a group of reporters abandon the candidate and swarm around Raven and Katja. They asked the obvious questions: Do you support the California Depop Party? Do you feel Hayden Kurtz’s endorsement was made in sound mind? Raven, does your new work reflect your feelings about Hayden’s death and/or your specific political views?

While Raven and Katja were faltering and stalling and mentally dry-heaving, Sherman, in a very uncharacteristic fit of impulsive energy, decided to play the game, decided to patronize the media fucks. Rushing forward amongst Raven, Katja, and the journalists, he pulled off his fake cheeks, nose, mustache (spewing his phony teeth on Katja’s heels), blurting out, "Save the world–vote Depop!"

Raven and Katja were left standing, mouths agape. The carrion wasps lit upon their prey and were sated.

• • • •

One week was spent preparing the gallery space in Munich. The show was dedicated to a group of paintings known as the Lazarus TAT Series. TAT (Thematic Aptitude Test), in psychological circles, is an esoteric evaluation in which a picture or photograph of an ambiguous situation is presented to the patient. The scene may be that of a woman laughing while one man throws a wine bottle from a window, and another waits at a door slightly ajar. Said patient is supposed to provide narration to the scene, creating pretense and outcome. The counselor then interprets the explanation to decide if the patient's worldview is negative, positive, violent, or passive. Unfortunately, the counselor’s own interpretation of the patient’s interpretation may be psychologically skewed and erroneous. So much for head shrinkers.

Max’s TAT paintings were dark, open-ended scenarios painted in his notorious muddy palette stroke. He was a master of composition, and this series helped him affirm his leading role in contemporary art. Whatever that means.

Even then, he had never imagined himself a master at anything. His jaded, faded youth, growing up in San Jose, fifty miles south of San Francisco, was filled with a myriad of disappointments. Familial, societal, educational, emotional. Art was a primary gift but a secondary interest, and he pursued it (at first) only as a means of escape. Max had been on the road to the Junior Olympics as a middle-weight boxer. When an unfortunate loss in the ring denied him this chance, he turned his full attention spitefully toward art. Not long afterward, the Art Institute bought him a free ride to the City and away from a dysfunctional–make that non-functional–family environment. Max had never looked nor gone back; his father sometimes phoned in the depths of night, too inebriated for Max to understand. Max never quite understood his father anyway.

The end of the week found Max at midnight, the eve of the opening, hanging the last piece with the help of a young preparator named Guenther.

"Zees vun…I like et very much," he told Max in a thick German accent.

"Yeah…," Max agreed, rubbing a stubbly jaw. He picked up his bottle of ale from the clean tile floor, stood back and drank. "‘The Thanatos Incident’."

"Vat ess zees ‘San-a-toss’?" he inquired, then answered himself. "Ahh…Greek god uff dess."

"This figure is Thanatos," Max indicated to a pointy-bearded man in a chair, who wore spectacles and wrote in a small notepad while grinning lasciviously. The evil psychoanalyst. A young woman in a chair behind him stared blankly at a photograph of an older man affixed with a carnation on his lapel. The analyst wore a suspiciously similar flower. Another woman, possibly the girl’s mother, lay in a fetal position, weeping at her daughter’s feet. All figures were cast in murky hues with bodies contorted in grotesque dimensions. The room in which the figures were set was a wide open chamber with a bare wooden floor, all corners shrouded ominously in the brackish strokes of Max’s macabre brushwork.

The TAT paintings were an inside joke between him and Leslie. Max had been assisting Leslie at her place, a former machine shop near the South Park area of the SoMa. The building served as a workshop, living space, and even store, on the rare occasions she opened her doors to the public.

"Ahh, you’re sublimating your guilt for all those starving children in Bombay," Max proposed, as he helped file down mold aberrations on a gaunt and emaciated statuette.

"That’s what Clive Tilley from the Weekly might say," Leslie responded in her steady, somehow sarcastic monotone.

"Naw…not pandering enough," Max stopped his filing and looked up at Leslie. "They are like our evil, unwanted psychotherapists aren’t they?"

"Who? The critics?"

"Yeah. Always telling us and the public where our ideas came from and why we chose to deliver them in a certain way."

"It’s their job," resigned Leslie, selecting another figure to preen.

"No, their job is to critique technique and cross-reference influences and inferences," Max protested self-righteously. "Now they just pick our bones dry with their post-modern, psycho-babbling rhetoric."

"Who cares? It draws people to the shows."

"That’s not the point!" Max put the sculpture and file down and stood up. "I’ll give these wannabe art-Freuds something to analyze. I’ll toss so much contrived ambiguity their way that they’ll curse the day they ever failed Psychology 101!" Max tromped out the door of Leslie’s shop.

She yelled to him as his foot falls reverberated from down the alley, "Be very careful, Laz! They might discover your repressed bestial-necrophilic tendencies!"

Thus began the TAT series. "The Thanatos Incident" was his most cherished. He detested Freud and his sexually malignant sophistry. Eros and Thanatos? Right. The only innate instincts Max believed in were the drives to screw and rationalize. Flip-sides of the same theoretical coin?

"Vat are you vorking on now?" asked Guenther suddenly, yanking Max from the home videos of his mind.

"Huh?" He walked toward his denim jacket hanging near the curator’s office. The sound of a hammer echoed throughout the cavernous museum from somewhere down the wide hall.

"Are you painting anysing new?" asked the preparator earnestly.

Max’s guard came up in a guilty, neurotic flash. "Uh, yes! Well, no…it’s been a while…I have some ideas…still developing but…maybe?" Confused at his own reaction to such an innocent question, Max left Guenther with his evasive response and hurried back to the hotel, filled with new anxiety over the opening. He met Rubi in the elevator. She was just returning from an evening of night-clubbing. A cute, young, blonde Dutch woman named Sylvia accompanied her. Both were soaked head to foot with sweat from tearing up the dance floor.

"Have a good time?" Max greeted, forcing his expression into that of lightheartedness. Sylvia held Rubi’s hand adoringly.

"There’s a great club called Reichstag a few blocks away. Sylvia is on vacation and staying by herself here in the hotel," sang Rubi with tipsy eagerness. He knew this libidinous mood of hers well. It required far more attention and energy than he could summon at the moment.

In their room, Max sat on the edge of the king-size bed. Slowly he removed his cracked leather workboots. Rubi and Sylvia giggled behind him. He heard Rubi phone room service for a bottle of vodka. Turning slightly, he beheld Sylvia clumsily undressing Rubi. Both were soon naked, and Sylvia ran tittering into the bathroom. The sounds of a shower issued forth.

Rubi was on the bed at Max’s ear, the turgid nipples of her small, pert breasts rubbing against his triceps. "Sylvia would like you to join us in the shower," she crooned softly. Her teeth were on his lobe. He smiled, and, in his nonpossessive manner, appreciated the moment but knew he must bow out–the mood dictated it. He pulled her head up over his shoulder where he could kiss it.

"Gotta rest, Rubidoux. Big day tomorrow." Lord, he hated denying her.

"All right," she agreed, seeming to know how he would respond. "We’ll take this party to her room. Don’t wanna disturb you. First, a shower." She was gone, and, as he climbed between the cool sea of sheets and drifted into a worrisome slumber, the glorious music of two sexually elated females made an attempt at appeasing him.

Openings do much to inflate the artist’s ego. Nobody dares dissent in the presence of the master and his admirers. It is the review, days later, removed from the tide of praise, that cuts. It was characteristic of Max to seal himself up for the week following such an event. Even though the opening was a retrospective, he knew the periodicals would spew their usual literary bile. Knowing this, he might schedule one or two interviews at the end of his reclusive week to get the final word.

A week spent in this way was refreshingly unreal to Max; he cherished it. The bustle of prepping a show in contrast with the slothful and indulgent week-long respite remained a traditional bliss in Max’s repertoire. He accepted calls only from his publicist, SoMa friends, and room service. No papers delivered, no news watched, no contact with the media fucks.

That week, by cover of the humid Teutonic night, Max and Rubi stole from the hotel (sometimes with the ever-ebullient Sylvia) to a dance club or bar. Rubi had colored her hair in a shimmering blond hue as soon as she had arrived in Munich, and it flamed dully under the fluorescent streetlights. Once the three of them made love in Sylvia’s room to the electronic melodies and broken cadence of MTV. Max was never quite prepared for the arena of sexuality into which Rubi occasionally drew him. Such temptation he usually yielded to only on canvas with thick, dark oils, and solitude. But "no" did not come easy to his lips, and with Rubi it scarcely arrived at all. Most of the time Max would let Rubi have her distractions, always mellifluous and unabashedly erotic, and Max would stand by transfixed at the event, a performance closest to true art–created in pleasure, for pleasure, and profoundly beautiful to behold. The things Rubi did never appeared contrived to Max–her current was pristine, as was the scintillating wake it left behind. It was simple to explain. Max: lover–Rubi: beloved.

If a work of art lived, one would need not create it. If Velasquez’s Maids of Honor breathed and could hold your hand, the artist would never need dip a brush; if Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl kissed you every morning, there would be no cause to soil a canvas. Because some aren’t privileged with such living masterpieces to comfort their waking hours, they recreate them, or try to, living with magnificent color and form from painting to painting, sculpture to sculpture, novel to novel.

Max made love to his Mona Lisa nearly everyday and even brought her to Germany.

Sherman could not eradicate from his mind the day he found Hayden Kurtz’s corporeal shell. He had been considering a new performance piece and needed an opinion; Hayden had always been handy at helping to figure out the technical pros and cons of Sherman’s pieces.

It was early evening. Sherman was bundled against the chill, layered in sweaters and a coat. The front door was unlocked, so he walked in. He called to Hayden: no answer. Peeking into the study, he saw Hayden sitting in his recliner, eyes open and dull with dust and death. A long black stain oozed down the writer’s chin, staining the collar of his white shirt. On the other side of the room, the video monolith fuzzed soundlessly.

Sherman sat on the hard couch and stared at his friend’s corpse. He was too shocked to feel anything.

"You jerk," Sherman said to Hayden. "I wanted to go first. You would’ve given me a great eulogy." Hayden stared back like a marble-eyed statue, frozen for eternity, hard and cool. "I was thinking of a new piece. Four horses. What’s that? Yeah, the Horses of Judgment, you got it. Too obvious, huh? Cat got your tongue?" He laughed weakly, then pursed his lips. "You always were somewhat of a fool. In a lovable way, though, you moronic sot. Anyway, I was thinking of a quartering–you know, tie a man to the ground, then four horses run in opposite directions. You got it now–the rending of an individual by the forces of society, family, government . . . one’s friends . . . jerk. Old news, huh?" Three tears slid in succession down Sherman’s face and into the corner of his mouth. "I see you wore your favorite outfit. I hate string ties. So anyway, my problem is what to use as the victim. A live animal? A mannequin? What? You say animals are out? Yeah, animal rights groups. I get it. I could use you then: your corpse. I suppose I wouldn’t get away with it. No animals: does that mean the horses are out, too?" He noticed the bottle of India ink clutched in Hayden’s stiff hand. He saw the video camera on its tripod in the corner. There was a pile of papers and an envelope on the desk next to the deathbed recliner. Sherman said, "Video player on." The screen filled with the Depop Illuminatus, green and blue. He watched the entire two-hour documentary, Hayden in his recliner staring through Sherman into eternity. "Video player off. Phone, dial nine-one-one." After telling the emergency operator to send an ambulance and police car to Hayden’s address, he crossed the room and shut his friend’s eyes. After staring out the window at the crowd in front of the soup kitchen for several minutes, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink.

And now Sherman still had problems with the piece. It had gained significance since that day at Hayden’s. Execution. He ruled out the horses, ruled out animal sacrifice. It dawned on him that this could be his greatest performance piece if he used Hayden’s death and the Depopulation Movement as a spring board. Not horses: motorcycles; not a live animal sacrifice: himself. But how to do it without anyone stopping him?

Then Max and Rubidoux left for Munich. Soon afterward, Leslie, Katja, and Raven bullet-trained to Los Angeles for a small vacation and the final mixdown of Raven’s latest album. This was the perfect opportunity for his stunt–his friends wouldn’t get in his way. Except for Jack, maybe. How would he set up his greatest work in less than two weeks? He’d have to find a way to dupe promoters into thinking it was just a stunt.

• • • •

• • • •

The Munich International Airport was hard-packed with a contingent of Korean business people, crowding out most discernible non-Korean conversation. Rubi idly watched a surreal music holo-video. A five-piece pop band ten inches high played atop the platform screen surrounded by what appeared to be a contorted and sweaty orgy of doll-size lovers. Caramel popcorn in one hand, she stepped up and brushed her hand across the miniature three-dimensional images, wishing she could caress their tiny grunting bodies. She felt only air.

Max was on the phone. On the screen in front of Max was a digitized image of a woman’s scarlet lipstick pout, confessing that Master Sheridan was preoccupied with less trivial matters than phone conversation. The thin black receiver pressed to his sweaty ear, Max waited for the videophone answering machine to end its loop. Beeep.

"Look you gangly, self-aggrandizing sonuvabitch," he shouted into the receiver, glaring into the videophone lens and battling the loud tide of Korean. "You better not be up to what I think you’re up to out there at Candlestick. If you aren’t and it’s just one of your usual hideous performance gags, then okay–you’re still gangly. If you are doing some flashy following-in-the-insane-political-footsteps-of-Hayden-suicide-martyr display, then you better hope it kills you because when I arrive home in a couple hours, I’ll murder you myself, and you won’t have any goddamn spectacle to immortalize you, asshole!" He disconnected and pursed his lips. Max beheld Rubi scratching her newly painted tresses. That morning she had again cut and died her hair, this time pumpkin orange. Now she ran her hands through it nervously as she waited for him. He watched her search through her hand bag for a cheroot and light it. The overpowering clamor of the Koreans clouded his angry mind. Rubi would have to wait one more moment.

He dialed Jack’s number and got his machine, too. Uncharacteristically, it was a straight message. Jack’s moonish, thirtysomething visage was mired in gloom. He said, "Sorry I can’t make it to the phone, but I’m busy photographing my friend’s suicide. Leave a message. Max, if this is you, where in the hell have you been? Why weren’t you taking any calls? Sherman has lost his head and scheduled a stunt at a truck pull exhibition. I think he means to do himself in. The police won’t believe me–or they don’t care. Call me and get here as soon as possible." Beeeep.

"Oh, shit, Jack! Stop him for Chrissake! Shoot him in the leg, box his glass jaw, get him arrested! Fucking do something! What the hell have the rest of you been doing out there anyway?! I’ll be there as soon as I can!"

Shouldering his carry-on, he heard the faint sound of his flight being announced. He grabbed Rubi’s hand and trotted them to their space plane, glad for the first time of its existence.

"What’d you find out?" she asked, skipping along next to him to keep up.

"It looks like he’s really doing it," he told her gravely.

Her skipping turned into a light jog. She was silent, then said, "That idiot."

"Maybe there’s a chance it is a ruse–a joke. I wouldn’t put it past him."

"It better be."

• • • •

Before he left for the stadium, Sherman wandered through his loft one more time. He knew he wouldn’t miss it. He wouldn’t exist to miss anything. He placed his living will on a chair in the entrance way so they wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

His mood was high; he felt clear and confident. What a great ending! What a finale! All he wanted was to be remembered forever. Was that too much to ask?

• • • •

They filed into the slender space plane, anxious to find their seats. The flat television monitors attached to the back of each seat accessed nearly three hundred channels. Studying the guide, Max and Rubi scanned the various arts and entertainment networks. Rubi stopped at one. The commentator spoke in some Slavic-sounding language, translating an interview with Katja Chomski, explaining her role in a movie she had done over ten years ago.

"Look at her hair style," Max pointed out.

"I didn’t know she was that old."

They continued to search, even as the ascent of the space plane pressed their colons through the smalls of their backs.

"That sonuvabitch."

"So melodramatic."

The steward, a young black man with a tall, platinum, loosely-kinked afro, offered to get them drinks.

"Double martini."

"The same," Max added.

"Say, you wouldn’t know if the Sherman Sheridan performance piece today is televised would you?" Rubi asked the steward hopefully.

"Why yes, I do," he replied. "He’s fabulous." He leaned over to Max’s monitor and tuned in the "Blue Collar Channel."

"Figures," Max said.

Bright technicolor etched the scene in malevolent circus-time grandeur. The host, a giant, tanned, steroid-thewed freak of nature and cosmetic surgery, vomited a heinous bile of slick media fuck triteness to the viewers.

"…if you’re just joining us, we are at Candlestick Park, which up until today’s event had been virtually abandoned. While the violence of what is known as the Hunters Point area of San Francisco forced the City to close the park several years ago, sometimes the police department dons its body armor and secures the area for special events, like today’s Grand National Truck Pull. Not only are we here to see the strongest trucks in the nation, we have a bonus cultural treat. Our final event will be the death-defying stunt of performance art stuntman, Sherman Sheridan." The host stood next to a mammoth biker, dressed in denim and leather, and seated on a huge, chromed-out Harley. "With me now is Bob Clemens, president of the San Berdoo Hellcats, a rough-riding motorcycle club from Southern California. How’d you hook up with Sheridan, Bob?"

Bob, as fat and greasy as the host was muscular and tanned, spat a black stream of chewing tobacco at the ground, saying "I met Sherm six years ago when he hired me and my buddies, Turk and Eddie, to beat the shit out of him for one of his other . . . uh, works of art, as he calls ’em. Personally, I think he’s stone crazy, to tell you the truth, Frank." He smiled, revealing a mouthful of decayed and missing teeth. Trucks revved and roared across the dirt field behind Bob and the host. The camera panned over a setup of four stakes lodged in the ground attached to four Harley Davidsons, riderless and silent.

"Tell us about this rig, Bob," he commanded the biker.

"Well, Frank, this is an exact replica of the medieval execution device known to ‘quarter’ its victims–except for the motorcycles, of course." The burly man suddenly became strangely enthusiastic; excited spittle drenched the microphone before him.

"Don’t you mean ‘draw and quarter,’ Bob?" Frank asked brightly.

"Actually, no, Frank. ‘Drawing, hanging and quartering’–which has come to be known as ‘drawing and quartering’–was an Old English ritual in which the criminal was ‘drawn’ or dragged bodily through the town to the jeers of the peasants. Then the victim was hanged by the neck until almost dead, then partially disemboweled. Then their insides were burned over an open fire, after which they were beheaded. Finally the torso was cut into four pieces and spiked at the four corners of the city as a warning to other evil folk."

Frank laughed good-naturedly. "Why that wouldn’t be very practical for today’s event, now would it?" Both gave hearty chuckles. "So what exactly is Sheridan doing here?"

"I’m glad you asked that. Today we have what the French simply called ‘quartering.’ It was usually done to folks who’d killed their parents."

"Oh, really…"

"The victim is tied prone and spread-eagle to those four stakes there in the middle of the field. Attached to the ropes that bind him would, under normal circumstances, be four horses."

"I see: it’s sort of symbolic. Aren’t the horses supposed to represent the four horsemen of the Good Book of Revelation?"

"That’s right, Frank. Divine judgment. Also, the four seasons, the four directions, and the world in general."

"That’s very interesting, Bob."

"Thanks, Frank. The idea is